


Desi +  Hope + Curses

by EWM



Series: Comfortember (myfirstone!!) [8]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, Emotional Whump, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Mac tried as a murderer, MacGyver Alternate Universe, Murder Trial, Poor Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Whump, mac au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27498862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EWM/pseuds/EWM
Summary: We've finally got a new chapter of my Mac in Prison story, originally started for Whumptober. Mac recovers, gets a visitor and does some thing stupid (arguably). This was going to be much shorter and then it expanded into a whole whumpy/comfort mess. Blame my brain, but tell me what you think. Also available as chapter 4 of Non peccavimus + Deal + Prison (if you want to read the rest of the story too)Believe it or not this was actually written with a comfortember prompt in mind day 8 - LASHING OUT/ I admit quite a twisted interpretation of it.
Relationships: Angus MacGyver & Desiree "Desi" Nguyen, Angus MacGyver & Matilda "Matty" Webber (MacGyver TV 2016), Angus MacGyver & Russ Taylor, Riley Davis & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Wilt Bozer & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: Comfortember (myfirstone!!) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996306
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Comfortember 2020





	Desi +  Hope + Curses

Dr Arran chatted to Mac happily for an hour or so. He didn’t mention Mac’s crimes or the trial (he like most of the U.S. would have heard about it). Instead he asked Mac where he grew, if he’d gone to college, normal things about his life. Mac found himself pouring out details about his life to a man he barely knew, simply grateful to have a normal conversation. He spoken about Mission City, MIT, even joining the army. The doc listened politely and nodded in all the right places and spoke a little answering Mac’s questions. Mac knew on some level he was probably being humoured, be nice to the violent crazy person and then you just walk away. But Mac didn’t mind, he was just happy talking. Arran’s soft-spoken tones made Mac forget the ache in his hands and how painful his stomach and the bruises that still covered his back. But eventually Arran had to go back to work. Mac thanked him profusely again for his kindness, his generosity, just being nice to him. Arran simply nodded and with a little wave wondered off to check on the few other patients in the hospital. Mac lent back against the comfortable hospital bed and thought. Maybe he could survive here if Arran was his friend, not that he could really have any friends. But maybe…just maybe life could be deal able with at least. At least it could be a little bit better and stop his thoughts heading back to his old life.

Mac spent two weeks in the hospital. Arran came and spoke with him every day, he asked Mac how he was feeling, checked his bandages, checked his stomach. It was all done very matter of fact, very calm and clinical. There was no brutality to it which MacGyver was pathetically grateful for. After the first week Mac however, he started to fidget and move (all habits die hard). So one day when Arran came looking for him, he panicked; Mr MacGyver was not in his bed, he was in fact six beds down sitting on another bed fiddling with the wiring that went through one of the lights absorbed in something. Dr Arran stalked over, frowning

_“Mr MacGyver, what exactly are you doing? Why are you not in bed?”_

Mac was snapped out his trance, he dropped the wiring immediately and held up his hands as though Arran was pointing a gun at his back. The tone had been so powerfully reminiscent of the prison guards that some terrified part of Mac’s brain responded on instinct. He prayed he hadn’t upset Arran too much, that he wouldn’t get into trouble for simply trying to be helpful and repay the doc’s kindness

_“I saw one of the lights was flickering. I know that type of LED, I thought I could fix it for you. They’re not hard to fix usually, it’s normally just a loose connection, so I opened the wiring to check. I’ll put it back. I I didn’t mean to make you upset or angry.”_

Mac said still holding his hands up, he kept his eyes on the floor. Subservience was another way of surviving in prison Mac reminded himself. The doctor breathed a sigh of relief and came round and sat on the opposite bed

_“Mr MacGyver, Mac…you may put your hands down...please.”_

Mac put his hands in his lap and continued to stare at the floor.

_“Look at me please.”_

Mac turned his eyes up to the doctor; he’d gotten very use to doing what he was told in his short period in prison.

_“Now tell me what’s wrong with the light?”_

Mac eyes widened, whatever reaction he was expecting it wasn’t that. However he didn’t hesitate, he reiterated his explanation of the loose wiring, the LED lighting the make and model and then stopped abruptly

_“And how would you fix it?”_

Again Mac was deeply confused, but kept going, gesturing with his still bandaged hands. Arran nodded at him and gestured for him to continue. So Mac fixed the light just as he requested and of course the flickering was gone. At the end of his little demonstration Mac flinched a little.

_“Thank you Mac, I think that’s enough DIY for today. If you’ll come back to your own bed.”_

Arran offered him an arm which Mac gratefully took, the doc quickly and efficiently took him back to his bed and tucked him in. He didn’t speak to him; he just nodded and went off on his rounds deep in thoughts. Mac breathed a sigh of relief; he didn’t seem to be in trouble. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to make things, it had sort of been part of his sentence, just a computer hacker couldn’t touch tech, he couldn’t touch well anything in his case and build things in the way that he once did. He sank back on the bed and fell asleep revelling in the peace and quiet that he knew wouldn’t last much longer. Arran on the other hand, had plenty to think about. Mac fascinated him as a patient, he seemed very different to the ones he’d encountered before. Arran as a rule never looked up a patient’s crime unless it was absolutely necessary, he did his best to treat everyone equally (and that had been a stretch sometimes) and do his job. But Mac had got him curious, he was a high security prisoner, so presumably a violent crime of some sort and the injures from the shive indicated he’d made some serious enemies. But Mac was the complete opposite of a violent man; docile and frankly a little sad even for a prisoner. Arran also knew that appearances could be deceiving, but his own curiosity got the best of him. He went into the prison files, one of the perks he had as a prison physician and looked him up. It made for disturbing and fascinating reading; Angus MacGyver, former scientist; ex-army just as Mac had told him and…brutal child murderer? Really? Something in Arran recoiled at the thought. He also just didn’t think the profile fitted particularly well; child murders particularly the ones that Mac had been convicted of had a certain personality type that he just did not fit.

Either way Mac was clearly bored out of his mind, who fixed a lightbulb as a thank you gift? Maybe…maybe he could use him? As some kind of helper or assistant? At least for this week, if he didn’t give him something to do. Mac was clearly going to start pulling apart things in the hospital. Perhaps Mac could help him here in the hospital? Fixing things maybe, or learning some of the basics? Mmmh maybe not? Surely, he could find a way to use him though?

So it was the following morning Arran was there earlier than usual waking up Mac with some medical scrubs and prison shoes in his face. Mac’s look of panic broke his heart

 _“Am I going back??…I’ll get up”_ Mac stammered, starting to get up, Arran held up his hand. 

_“No, I just think I should make use of you while you’re here.”_

_“Use of me?”_ Mac was not calming down as he had hoped

_“Fixing things, you clearly have some intriguing talents and I’d like to use them while I have you here, if that’s alright with you?”_

_“I of course. Please tell me what I can do to help…I want to repay you for your kindness to me…I’ll do whatever I can to help.”_

Arran nodded his approval and dumped the scrubs on the bed, when Mac raised an eyebrow, Arran rather acidly pointed out that he couldn’t run around semi naked in a hospital gown. Mac smiled and nodded, he stripped off and Arran politely turned away. Again Mac was struck by the doctor, he was civil and polite. He treated Mac almost like was a proper person. He coughed and Arran turned again, he gestured for Mac to follow. He led him into one of the small side rooms of the hospital wing. What looked like a defunct x-ray machine stood in the corner and a broken table.

_“You think you can fix the table?”_

Mac nodded enthusiastically, his dormant brain finally kicking into action. He moved towards the table without even asking and started to examine the broken parts. Arran smiled at the change in the young man, it was like he was truly alive again. Arran departed and left for his rounds, he had expected Mac to come looking for him, after all the doc hadn’t left him anything to actually fix the table with. But 40 minutes later when there was still no sign of Mac, he returned and saw Mac lying underneath the table re-screwing in bolts with his hands. Seeing the doc come in, Mac got up and came over. He launched into an elaborate explanation of how he’d fix the table, jerry rigging small parts from other things he’d found in the room to stabilise it and undoing bolts and then redoing them up again and how of course this was probably a temporary solution, but it was last another six months and people couldn’t definitely lie on it again now and he could his use it for whatever he needed. Mac wiped the dust from his fingers on his cheek and looked sheepish. Arran simply smiled from ear-to-ear, he was about to take Mac out of the room when he said

_“I could trying fixing that X-RAY machine too….if you like.”_

_“Do you think you could?”_

_“I could at least try??”_ Mac pleaded. If his old friends heard him then they would have been cheered and heart broken in equal measure, to think that their genius friend had lost some of his confidence, but not his inherent curiosity. It was a sad tangle. Arran simply gestured for Mac to have a go and he moved eagerly over. Arran stayed for a few minutes watching from the door, as the young man pulled the machine apart bit by bit. He really was brilliant. In the end Arran left him to it, he knew what he was doing wasn’t really appropriate, particularly with Mac’s crimes. But Arran was a firm believer in redemption, particularly for those who were sorry for what they had done. And although Arran hadn’t directly asked him that first interaction of ‘please let me die’ made him think that Mac was filled with remorse. Two hours later Arran returned, and the x-ray was half way to being fixed, various parts still on the floor. Again, Mac got up enthusiastically and explained everything to Arran and the doctor nodded and smiled. Eventually by the end of the day Mac good as his word managed to get the machine to jitter into life again.

As the week went by Arran repeated his little experiment, getting Mac to become a helper/handyman around the wing. He was always careful to do it when the guards were not about, he didn’t need Mac or himself getting into trouble. But he thought maybe there was hope for the young man yet. Even if he was a lifer and his file suggested he was, perhaps Arran could help him do some good long term. But eventually Mac had to leave, the day came when Arran removed the bandages from his hands and his stomach and although he would have three new impressive scars to add to his collection, he would ultimately be fine. Mac was so sad to depart, he had felt so stable around Arran, something close to his old self. But not too near to make him feel guilty or confused.

Mac stayed silent as he changed into his regular prison clothes and laid what had become his ‘hospital uniform’ on his bed. Arran waited for him and as Mac was about to brush past him, he offered him his hand. He simply said quietly

_“Thank you, Mac, you’ve been a real help this week.”_

Mac could have cried, he just smiled and then left. The guards who were waiting to escort Mac back to the general population didn’t take much notice of the exchange. Dr Arran had always been weird; way to nice the gen pop, to all the monsters. Mac was pushed and shoved all the way back to his hole in the general population. He ignored the screeching, abuse and threats and sat down on the bed and once again resumed his staring into space. He was determined to bury his experiences of Dr Arran; Arran had given him too much hope and that was dangerous in prison. He had to forget about him, about fixing things, about actually doing something good and retreat into the little black hole he had made for himself. Mac also knew another attack would be coming, managing to survive and be so heavily favoured by the doctor would mean he would now be a marked man.

A week past and Mac resumed his keeping his head down stance. He had received some furtive glances from other prisoners, but that had been it. One day when he was folding laundry in line, his mind elsewhere. He was wakened from his trance by a guard yelling.

_“Prisoner 218, Angus MacGyver out of line!”_

Mac snapped to attention, dropping the laundry and stepping out, his hands not held up exactly, but held where the guards could see them. The guards pushed and pulled him along as they always did. He moved along the grey corridors, moving seemingly towards the hospital wing again, but surely that couldn’t be right? Or was this the attack, his eyes flittered between the guards. Mac was partly right, the guards stopped him. This time he saw the attack coming; a punch to the stomach, he dodged and span around, his own training kicking in. The two of them went for his stomach, he dodged again, slamming one man into a wall, his second managed to pin with a baton and he gasped for breath and scrabbled, the guard used his spare hand to pin Mac’s hands against the wall above his head.

_“Now listen you useless piece of crap, just because you got favour in here with the doctor. It doesn’t mean anything, you’re still a monster, and you’re going to pay for what you did. Scum like you don’t survive long, understand.”_

Mac gasped still stuck under the baton, by this point the second man had recovered and managed to get a right hook into his face. Then baton dropped, Mac fell to the floor. He was still gasping for breath and he could feel a faint trickle of blood coming from the side of his face, Mac was just grateful they hadn’t gone for his stomach. He wiped the blood away as best he could and stood again. The guards pushed him on as if nothing had happened, he was indeed going to the hospital wing again. Arran looked up when heard the knock at his office door. He smiled when he saw Mac and gestured for him to come inside, instead the guards entered first

_“Doc, prisoner 218 as you requested.”_

_“Thank you gentlemen, that’ll be all”_

_“We should really stay doc, he’s a violent one, for your protection. You could get hurt.”_

_“Gentlemen, he did me no harm while he was in my care a week ago. I doubt that’s going to change”_

_“But doctor..”_

_“Gentlemen, this wing is my domain. You’ve heard my orders, now depart. I know where you are if I need you. Now leave, what did I tell your fellow guards last time? Ahh yes fuck off, he’s my patient now.”_

_Arran finished his mini speech and looked down at his desk again and waved his hand, not deigning to look up at them. Mac stood awkwardly to the side waiting for it to be over._

_“Now that we’re alone. I’ve got a proposition for you, I meant it when I said I appreciated your help last week. And I think it would be useful for me and you perhaps if I had you around on a more regular basis.”_

Mac looked at him, he started to hope again, he couldn’t help it. What was the doc proposing?

_“Are you interested? There’s plenty in the wing to fix, most of the equipment is outdated and half broken. I’d be interested to see if you could pull the same trick you did with my x-ray machine with a few other pieces of tech around here?”_

_“Of course, I mean anything I can do to help. I’ll do whatever you ask.”_

At this point Arran got up and smiled at Mac

 _“Good, well you can start now, first order of business. I suggest you fix that eye of yours.”_ Arran said pulling a tissue from his desk and handing it to Mac. Mac took it gratefully and dabbed the now bleeding again eye. Arran took him out of the office and began to explain his plans; the idea was that Mac would come to him everyday rather than the laundry room. It was already fixed the warden, Mac queried Arran having such influence

_“Most of the patients tend not to die under my care and it makes the prison look good”_

Mac shrugged and nodded. So from then Mac’s days took on a very different structure, he was still scared a lot of the time and stressed, he was waiting for the attack to come. But for the few hours he spent in the medical wing with Arran each day, fixing things, cleaning things he got some peace and Arran got the satisfaction of helping an extremely damaged young man do something good. Mac fell into a kind of rhythm, he found too that if he focused on those tasks that Arran gave him, that he could forget about the Phoenix and his old life. It gave him perverse kind of peace. That all changed the day Desi showed up to visit.

The day started out like any other. Mac had arrive at the wing, the guards had left him alone for once, Arran had given a list of things to and he’d began, but less than hour later, Arran had called him

_“You’ve got a visitor.”_

_“What?”_

_“A family friend? A Miss Desiree Nyugen?”_

_“Yes…I know her. Why is she here?”_

_“I assume to see you?”_

_“No that’s not what I meant!”_

Mac stopped short. Arran waited for an explanation. But he got nothing. Instead the guards came a few minutes after, one of them was holding a set of wrist and ankle cuffs. Arran fumed

_“Is that really necessary?”_

_“Yes Doc, this man”_ one of the guards said giving Mac a push _“is a dangerous criminal”_

 _“I suggest, you don’t agitate him then”_ Arran replied cynically _“No Mac you can leave your jacket here, we’ll come back down here.”_

_“Not you doc. I’ve orders that only prisoner 218 is go up to the guards wing.”_

_“But..”_

_“Orders are orders, from the head of the prison”_

Arran groaned and gave Mac’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze. Then the guards snapped the cuffs onto MacGyver’s wrists and the chain around his waist and around his feet…like an animal. They pushed him away from the relative safety of the medical wing, through the gen pop, the kitchens and a whole myriad of other corridors and then finally the last door, he could see her through it. The guard to unlock it and then pushed Mac through. Desi couldn’t quite believe her eyes when she finally saw him after 3 months. He looked awful, but somehow better than her nightmares. He had dark smudges across his face making his blue eyes look even bigger than usual. His hair had grown out longer and he’d had bits of stubble, a look she’d never really seen on his face. He was sporting the yellow remains of what had been at one point a serious black eye. The prison uniform was blue, but oddly grey and dusty, like he had been working on a project of some kind. His hands were locked up and so were his feet. She moved towards him

 _“No touching!!!”_ A guard shrieked at her.

Desi shrank back. Mac didn’t move at all, he just waited, so docile, so obedient, like…a dog that had been beaten too many times Desi thought bitterly.

 _“Sit!”_ the guard

Desi sat on the rounded table in the room and Mac shuffled towards her and perched as best he could. The guard glared at them both making sure they stayed apart

_“Hi, how have you been doing?”_

He shrugged his shoulders. Something in Desi panicked, Mac quiet was not a good sign. She launched into her spiel; her apology for taking so long, how everyone was hard at work, they all missed him. Everyone would come visit him soon, Russ would working all his legal contacts, he knew he would get you out of this. There would be an appeal, the system would work, they’d get him free and he’d be home again. He’d go back to the Phoenix, they’d all get through it. Bozer, Riley and Matty send their love and told him that they would be there waiting for him when he came out. Up to this point Mac had just about kept it together, he couldn’t help but stare at Desi, her dark eyes, her almost black hair, the beautiful tattoos. He’d missed her in a way that made his heart ache; her voice, her smile, just hearing her talk gave him some hum of pleasure plus knowing that they were all there, all still alive gave him comfort. It meant that everything he had been enduring was not for nothing, they were all still alive. But when Desi said; they would all be waiting for him, he broke.

 _“Desi! Just stop!”_ Mac snapped

Desi stopped talking abruptly. It was so rare for Mac to lose his temper under any circumstance.

_“I’m not getting out of here, you know it, I know it! Just stop all of this! Stop all this false…hope. It’s never going to work. I’m convicted a murderer, a child murderer!! That stain will never leave me. I’m going to die in here, alone. Just stop all this fake…stuff. Stop the fight, it’s done. The fight is over. Just fucking stop. Listening to you like this, I’ll go mad, thinking of all your waiting, risking your lives for me! It’s not worth it all right! I’m not worth it, I’m poison, corrupt. It’s a fight you will never never win! I’m done. Just stop alright!!! I can’t listen to this, I won’t!! Fucking give up. I mean it Desi, tell the others, tell them all. Tell Riley and Bozer to stop scheming, tell Matty to stop planning and calling in favours, they’re wasted on the likes of me and Russ, tell him, don’t waste his fucking money! He’s pouring it into a black hole. Desi fucking enough!!”_

By this time, Mac’s voice had gone to top volume and he was leaning right at her, almost into her face. The guards moved into drag him away

_“But Mac! You’re our friend! Our family, we aren’t giving up. We would never do that to you. I would never give up on you! None of us would. We aren’t going to give up the fight! Mac you just have to hold out. I promise we’ll bring you home!”_

Mac wanted to scream at this, if they kept this up. All this hell would have been for nothing. They’d all be dead and he’d be damned even more, he had to send her away, permanently or…or they’d all die.

_“Desi. It’s done! I don’t want you here! Not ever! I’m a child murderer, I deserve to die in this place. I am going to die in this place! Don’t put your god damn lives on hold for me! I mean it! Then none of this, none of this is worth it! Don’t you get it??? If everything stops outside. Why the fuck I am even here? If you guys… if anything happened to you while I was in here. I’d never forgive myself. So that’s why I’m telling you, get the fuck out! Don’t’ come back. Tell the others that, I don’t want any of them here!! I don’t fucking want any of you here again. Don’t ever fucking come back!”_

Mac screamed this last part in her face. Desi ever the solider didn’t flinch, there were no tears, only a neutral expression and quietly she said.

_“We’ll never given up on you Mac.”_

The guards by this time had dragged him and were pulling him, he was still cursing at the top of his voice

_“Don’t fucking come back! I don’t want you anymore!”_

They pulled him out into the corridor, his screaming could still be heard, until some guard managed to push a gag into his mouth, then it was just muffled shouts. Desi just sat there alone with her head in her hands. Mac pushed hard against the guards, they fought back. The cuffs on his wrists cut into him deep producing red lines around his wrists and ankles, on one of his feet it was so bad that he left a trail. His rage and panic fuelled him as the guards pulled him along. He managed to elbow one of them in the face, they pushed him back smacking him around the head. Finally they made it to solitary, a series of stone cold rooms, they held him in front of one of the doors as the restraints were pulled off. They pushed him inside fast and slammed the door behind him. He banged his fists against the door in fury, he screamed himself hoarse. He didn’t really say anything coherent, just mumbled phrases and curses.

Finally the adrenaline of his encounter with Desi wore off and he sat on the floor in an exhausted heap. He was surrounded by mostly darkness, there was a tiny slit of light seen through the door, but that was it. He calmed himself down in the black, he hated screaming at Desi like that but he had to push her away as hard as he could. Otherwise…otherwise all of them would be at risk from and he’d be trapped in here anyway, he would die either way. But at least…at least if he could keep her away, keep them all away, then his death would have some purpose, but not if…if he…that man (Mac couldn’t even quite bring himself to say the name in his head) found out, they’d all be lost.


End file.
